Because 82 percent of American earners pay more in payroll taxes than income taxes, no politically conceivable or economically feasible middle-class tax rate can fund the entitlement state. And America’s political culture rules out funding it with new consumption or energy taxes. By rescuing almost everyone from the restoration of Clinton-era rates, liberals abandoned any pretense of paying for their program of ever- expanding entitlements. Instead, they made trillion-dollar deficits their program.

Lawmakers are required by law to pass a budget each year by April 15, but there’s no provision to punish them, or even slightly inconvenience them, if they don’t. In [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid’s case, the Senate last passed a budget in April 2009, 1,351 days ago as of Wednesday.

Not quite sure how to refine a google news search to compare the number of articles written about and amount of broadcast “news” time devoted to Todd Akin’s crazy comments on rape and those on the failure of Reid’s Senate Democrats to meet their legal obligations in passing a budget.

Seems the Missouri Republican fit the legacy media narrative about Republicans being fringe characters, but somehow Mr. Reid’s inaction is at odds with their conviction about the Democrats being the more responsible party.

And it called to mind something Glenn Reynolds had posted yesterday, a reader e-mail reporting increased business at gun stores in Alabama. “There’s no question“, said correspondent observed

that America is better armed than it was two months ago, all thanks to President Obama! Assuming the Republicans in the House don’t prove spineless (a major assumption), the net effect of the Obama gun control initiatives will be to a massive increase in guns owned by private citizens, record profits for gun stores and manufacturers, and a very alert citizenry. This second term may yet work out better than expected!

Instead of decreasing the number of firearms, including “assault” rifles owned by citizens, Democratic rhetoric has served to increase that number. Seems that politicians’ rhetoric is like government action: the results are quite from those intended.

So I wonder, are Christie’s recent negative comments about Republicans something like Xenophon’s frequent sacrifices and invocations of the gods throughout the Anabasis? Might Republicans learn something from this? The vast majority of people are liberal today not because they have reasoned their way to that position, but because they believe in it as the average person used to believe in god. Authority—in schools, on TV and in print—tells them that the Republicans are evil. Indeed, it is not an exaggeration to say that hating Republicans is the Last Man’s god. (I believe it was Allan Bloom who said that “anti-bourgeois ire is the opiate of the last man…”). So Christie makes sacrifices, as he must, to that hateful god. He invokes that god. He publicly embraces that god.

Via Powerline Picks. Emphasis added. Read the whole thing. This guy is onto something. My only quibble is that I would add “who are” between the word, “people,” and phrase, “are liberal”, and add “arrive are this ‘designation’” after “liberal today” in the italicized portion

I do find that, in interactions with many who call themselves liberal or who support President Obama have not, as Kristol’s correspondent put it, “reasoned their way” there, but have accepted the designation or come to the support because that is what they believe “good” people do. They talk more in abstractions than details, often preferring clichés to arguments. Many seem oblivious when you point out details of Obama’s policies.

And some seem dumbfounded when they learn that ideas for change that they support are similar to policy reforms Republicans have put forward.

At present, I don’t have a solution to this problem Republicans face. But, we need at least recognize the GOP’s image problem, especially among the chattering classes and consumers of popular culture. (more…)